Tangled Thoughts
by raysfan6497
Summary: So this is the first story I've ever written for Bones and the 1st work of fiction I have written in several years. Set to take place in Season 5, everything up until then is in canon but this is AU. Written from Brennan's perspective. Just a 1 shot for now but I might consider continuing it at some point. Offers to Beta future chapters would be greatly appreciated


Dr. Temperance Brennan had made it her life's work to study the human race. No one fascinated her more than that of her partner Special Agent Seeley Booth. Watching Booth had become Brennan's favorite pastime, though she'd deny it with all her might. His chiseled features, the calm and almost deadly stares he gave suspects in the interrogation room, the way those same eyes looked at his son with such love and tenderness, they have long tugged at feelings she didn't want to acknowledge.

When she first met Booth, she quickly lumped him under the Alpha-Male category. There was no denying that Agent Booth was cocky and uncompromising. He preferred to do things his way or not at all. After that first disaster of a case (and an incredible kiss in the rain she could never set far from her mind) she had blocked his attempts to contact her and compartmentalized the annoyingly handsome FBI agent. But after some ingenious maneuvering on Booth's part, Brennan had agreed to work with the arrogant man again.

She quickly found most of her opinions of Booth's character changed. Brennan discovered that underneath that expensive suit and cocksure attitude was a man far more complex than she could have ever imagined. He was the victim of an abusive father, his mother in fear of her own life had left her two young sons in the hands of a violent man with a love of the bottle and more demons than he could face. He had been a sniper in the army, arguably the one of the best ever produced by the US Military, but that fact alone gave Booth his own share a demons he lived with. He was a single father trying to do the best he could to raise his young son to be a good man. Booth had the same need to see justice brought for the victims of the cases he investigated as she herself did. The biggest revelation about Booth had come just months into their partnership. Seeley Booth was arrogant, charming, infuriating but also the most compassionate, loving and loyal man she had ever met.

Brennan had watched Booth struggle with his own demons and rise above them countless times. He had put himself in mortal danger to protect her and strangers more than she cared to remember. He had done that all without the expectation of receiving anything in return. He constantly worried that he was a bad father; she assumed it was due to his own upbringing as he constantly compared himself to his own father. Brennan herself could not make sense of how Booth could not see he was nowhere near the violent man he was so afraid of becoming. All anyone had to do was watch him with Parker for 5 seconds and they could see the love and almost hero worship the boy had for his dad. However, Booth seemed to be blind to it and fretted on about how his past and the weight of his chosen line of work could easily turn him into the man he was so very afraid of becoming. She also quickly discovered that she could not just observe Booth in her usual detached and clinical manner.

She rolled over and sighed, Booth made her wish for things she wasn't aware she wanted. He made her normally logical brain recall dreams and memories she had stored away years ago as she had walked in to her first foster home. She had built those walls high and thick but Booth had stealthily made his way through her defenses until her dreams had become full of him and the life they could share together. Those dreams equally warmed her metaphorical heart and scared her analytical brain. Temperance Brennan was nothing if not perfectly rational.

So when she was alone in the dim light of her tent it was more often than not that she found herself tossing and turning instead of acquiring the few hours of sleep she desperately needed. Memories of her partner and the way his strong arms wrapped around her when he gave her a guy hug invaded her conscious thoughts. While dreams of Booth wrapped around her when they were both naked stole into her relaxed mind at night until she woke up with her heart pounding and her body almost humming from the desire coursing through her.

However, every time she considered stepping a toe over the line Booth had so clearly drawn, her fear of not being enough stopped her in her tracks. It was this fear that made her keep up the façade that she was oblivious to the attraction her and her partner had for each other. They had both been from the night of that very first case, after that sizzling kiss in the rain she knew that she wanted Special Agent Seeley Booth like she have never wanted another man. That of course had frightened her to her core and caused her to run from him and that wouldn't be the last time she ran.

This is why she now found herself in a tent in the middle of nowhere in Guatemala. After Booth had awoken from his coma, having worked the story she written into his dreams it had been decided by the adolescent looking FBI psychologist Lance Sweets that it would be better if she made her presence scarce while Booth sorted fact from fiction. Even though it hurt her to leave him, she had been assured by both Angela and Cam that they would keep an eye on Booth and contact her immediately if his condition worsened. Angela sent her daily emails only stating that she was told by Sweets that Agent Studly was coming along just fine in his treatment. Though she doubted that Sweets referred to Booth by that moniker.

Brennan not one to put stock in psychology and even as much as she had grown to like and even care for the young profiler, she still did not feel that Sweets could retain an objective opinion when it came to her and Booth's relationship. Regardless she took the out she was given and ran like the wind towards the first dig she could to put some distance between her and her partner. It had hurt her beyond words when Booth had woken from a 4 day anesthesia induced coma and asked who she was. It had weighed even heavier on her when she discovered that the story she had written and read to him in those 4 days had caused him pain and confusion. But even more were the unabashedly loving looks Booth had given her as the drugs in his system wore off and he gained more clarity.

She had thought that after a few hours, the haze of the coma dream would wear off and Booth would be as he was prior to having his tumor removed. That hadn't been what happened at all as he could not seem to let go of that fantasy life she had weaved with her words. A life where they were married and expecting a baby. She had so badly wanted to have Booth's child, to have a piece of him that she could love without having to risk her metaphorical heart. That was what the artificial insemination plan had been born from.

I should have known better, Brennan muttered to herself as she flipped onto her back in the narrow cot she was attempting to fall asleep on. Seeley Booth was a hands on kind of man. The one thing that caused him the greatest amount of pain was not being a full time father to Parker. She knew that but in her own selfishness she had asked Booth to help her create a child but not to be a partner in raising that child. Brennan sat up and ran her fingers through her disheveled hair as she pulled her knees to her chest wrapping her arms around them.

She had been in Guatemala for almost a month and had immediately discovered that her famous ability to compartmentalize had been severely compromised. Brennan had every intention of burying herself in the identification of ancient remains and forgetting the chaos she had left behind. Unfortunately her mind decided to throw questions and images of Booth at her every moment of the day and night.

Flopping back onto the cot, Brennan could see that faint traces of the dawn breaking through the canvas ceiling of her tent. She would be leaving in a few short hours to make her way back to D.C. and to the mess she had left behind. She had no idea what to expect when she arrived and that scared her more than anything, Temperance Brennan did not like the unknown, she preferred to have all the cold hard facts so that she could come to a logical solution.

Releasing a long sigh, she climbed from the cot and decided to start readying her personal belongings for the long journey home. She was terrified of what she would see when she faced Booth again. Though she wasn't sure what caused her the most fear, seeing that look of love in those deep brown eyes or finding that it had evaporated like the hazy mist of a dream.


End file.
